Weekend moment of Zen 6-9-12

If you are a baseball fan who hasn’t yet read Mark Lisanti’s “Derek Jeter’s Diary” over at Grantland yet, go now. Enjoy.

Though I don’t often do sports stats, “Jeter” has a few words about stats blogs:

I don’t read those blogs, they’re just negativity disguised as indisputable math…

That does about sum it up Derek. I kind of want that stitched on a pillow.

He also has some words of wisdom on the limitations of statisticss:

The stats guys are always trying to tell you there’s no such thing as clutch, that there’s no special skill to it, it’s all probabilities and math. Look: I also know that math exists. I’ve taken math classes, I’ve seen numbers be added and subtracted in front of my very eyes. Those symbols on the back of baseball cards mean something real.

But you can’t tell me that there’s not some magic ability some players have that makes them rise to the occasion when it counts most. I’ve seen Alex Rodriguez fail in huge situations too many times not to believe what I have is special.